


Between Two Lungs

by RhineGold



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Rating May Change, this came from a dream i had
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhineGold/pseuds/RhineGold
Summary: David's older brother always picked him up from school, but all of Everett's brothers were assholes, and so he rode the school bus. Nicholas Rush also rode the school bus. Last seat on the left, always at the very back of the bus. No one else sat anywhere near him, in case he lashed out again at whatever might set him off this time. Except he never seemed to do that on the bus. He would just stare out the window, forehead pressing against it, and watch the world go by.Everett never stared out the window. He only stared at Rush.
Relationships: Nicholas Rush/Everett Young
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a dream I had in November of 2020. I have other parts I want to write but I don't know if I need a concrete story or just a series of vignettes. Thoughts would be appreciated. It's one of the first stories I've written in years. I know no one likes high school AUs but this just happened so here it is,

Nicholas Rush was fucking crazy.

Everyone knew that. He would throw tantrums, throw things, curse, sometimes even scream. 

Unless he was being beaten. Then he would just stand there and take every blow as it came, barely wavering on his feet as his lip was split, as his nose started bleeding, as his eyes were blackened. He just stood there and took it all. Eventually, even his stamina would fail him and he'd fall to the ground in a daze. 

And he never told anyone. 

Teachers, guidance councilors, even the principal had asked him who was doing this, why, why didn't he just come forward and tell anyone? Surely some students had to know but no one ever ratted them out. No one had ever ratted them out. The teachers knew that they picked on him, sure, but when asked directly if they were both responsible, he'd flat out deny it every time.

Like he was protecting them.

Everett held his breath and Nicholas Rush's glasses as David drew his fist back and punched him hard in the gut, sending him wheezing to his knees before he fell completely to the ground.

~*~

David's older brother always picked him up from school, but all of Everett's brothers were assholes, and so he rode the school bus. Nicholas Rush also rode the school bus. Last seat on the left, always at the very back of the bus. No one else sat anywhere near him, in case he lashed out again at whatever might set him off this time. Except he never seemed to do that on the bus. He would just stare out the window, forehead pressing against it, and watch the world go by. 

Everett never stared out the window. He only stared at Rush. 

~*~

Nicolas Rush got off the school bus three stops before Everett did. 

The house was old, ramshackle, and looked like someone had recently robbed it. There were boarded up windows and newspaper covering the others. The windows were crooked in warped wooden frames and the roof looked destined to slide off at any moment. But the front door looked absolutely new, which was suspicious and surprising. 

Every day, Rush checked the mail in a skinny, rickety box on a slender bit of lumber nailed together, and trudged up to the front door. There was always a lot of mail. The door was always locked and he used the key on the steel bracelet he always wore to open it. 

Once the bus driver was certain he was safely inside, he'd move on to the next stop, to a nicer house with two little girls who were utterly forgettable. But Rush's house fit him so well it was almost funny. Nearly collapsing, with a strong barrier and everything so warped and bent as to be barely useful. But Everett never laughed. 

His own home was warm and respectable, large enough for four boys and a girl, with plenty of room to spare. 

It was safe.

He wondered how safe Nicholas Rush's house was. 

~*~

One day, he made up his mind.

When they boarded the bus in the morning, he walked to the back and sat in the right-hand seat, across the aisle from Rush.

"What d'you want?" he snarled, his accent particularly strong in the mornings. 

Everett knew that Rush was half Scottish, half American, and that they'd moved to the United States to be with his grandmother when his mother was dying. But then the grandmother had died too, leaving both senior and junior Rush stranded in the middle of Colorado. Everyone knew Rush's sad story. They'd even made cards as a class when his mother had died. He was sure they'd ended up in the trash can, of course.

"I just wanted to sit with you," he said finally, trying to keep his tone neutral. This was a minefield and he didn't want to make a false step.

"Go make yer jokes somewhere else," Rush snapped, leaning his forehead against the window. He remained tense the entire ride and Everett found it impossible to keep his palms from sweating. This was a terrible idea.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*~

When David knocks into Rush and sends all his books and papers flying across the hall, it is Everett who comes and helps him pick them up. Nicholas stares at him suspiciously from over the top of his glasses but say nothing, taking the offered papers like they are made of glass. Splintered glass. And then he walks away without a fucking word. 

So much for kindness. 

~*~

David has mono. 

Everett is, on the one hand, distressed that he might get it as well, but the test has been done and came back negative. But does he trust science? Uncertain. 

This, unfortunately, means he lacks a lab partner for the frog dissection they had both been looking forward to (for different reasons, he is sure). But then, as fate would have it, this turns into a certain boon.

Because Nicholas Rush doesn’t have a partner either.

~*~

Nicholas slices into the frog with what looks like practiced precision and Everett suddenly wonders if he’s done this sort of thing before. He’s read that psychopaths will sometimes mutilate animals as children before escalating to human prey, but he doesn’t really think Rush is a psychopath. Maybe.

“D’you want to pin it?” Rush asks, and his accent is suddenly endearing after all this time and Everett does want to pin the frog so he takes over.

His fingers aren’t as nimble as Rush’s but he does a passable job without breaking too much skin. The organs are so small and his fingers feel like huge, blunt objects and he feels self-conscious suddenly. “You, uh… You want to do the actual dissection while I write?” He asks. 

He might as well have slapped Rush for the way he jerks back, clutching his paperwork with both hands like a shield. “Sorry,” he mumbles, heat colouring his features. “Got lost in thought.”

“So yeah, I’ll write. You’re better at this than I am,” Everett says, realizing his voice is as soft as Rush’s for some reason. They are in the middle of a smelly, animated classroom but suddenly he feels like the space has narrowed down to just the two of them.

Until Nicholas snorts and makes a rude comment about his ‘football hands’ and shoulders him out of the way.

So much for moments. 

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My itunes started playing Between Two Lungs as I posted this. Nice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is ridiculously short but I wanted to end it here so whelp

David doesn’t believe him when he first suggests it and he laughs when Everett tells him he’s serious.

“Leave him alone? After all these years?” David is actively laughing hard at this point. “You going soft, Ev?”

“I just think it’s getting stale is all.” He doesn’t want to snap at his best friend, but there it is. 

“What, are you in ~love~ with him or something now?” He coos back, “Mackie said you two did the dissection together and it was ‘very cute looking,’”

“I just said I want to stop it!” He says more vehemently, feeling a blush creeping up his neck. “Why does everything have to be so… so _gross_ with you, man?” Everett tries to play it cool, but he has always flushed too easily in his life, and David knows this better than anyone.

“If it really means that much to you…” David says quietly.

“It does.” 

He continues though, voice taking on its normal jovial tone, “…Then I’ll just have to do it without you.”

~*~

Everett keeps true to his word. Unfortunately, so does David.

Rush comes staggering down the hallway towards the library (the one places David would never be caught dead) when he shoulders unintentionally into Everett (who is really standing in the doorway, anticipating this turn of events).

He makes a soft sound, not even really a cry, more like a huff, as they collide. 

Everett straightens the other boy up, and wonders where Rush’s glasses are. 

When he realizes just who has hold of his shoulders, Rush jerks back to hard that he careens sideways into a bank of lockers. “Splittin’ it up now, are we?” he snaps, clutching his books and shaking like a leaf.

Something is really wrong with Rush today, he realizes. The boy can’t seem to stand up straight and is wavering on his feet. There is something wrong with his face, besides his missing glasses, something Everett cannot put a finger on exactly.

Suddenly, Nicholas collapses into the floor, banging his head on the lockers as he goes.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [DESPERATE WRITER SEEKS CONFIDANT TO ASSIST IN FIC-WRITING INSPIRATION AND ENDEAVORS]


	4. Chapter 4

Nicholas Rush weighs hardly anything at all, he realizes. But his body is still lanky and unwieldly as Everett carries him through the hallway and towards the front of the school. Football practice has been over for a while and even the coaches are gone by the time he stumbles into the daylight, carrying the other boy like a rag. 

He does the only thing he can think of. 

Rush doesn't have any family except his father, who works god knows where and god knows when. There is never a car at the ramshackle house three stops from Everett's house. An ambulance is out of the question. For one, Nicholas will never live it down and therefore nor will he allow Everett to. And he knows from breaking his arm two years ago that ambulances are expensive and doctors require things like insurance and money and he is not sure that someone like Nicholas Rush has either.

So Everett does the only thing he can think of. 

He calls his mother.

~*~

Sylvia Young is a doting mother of five who sometimes can't stand her own children. But Everett knows she can hear the harder edge in his voice, the one making him sound older, like his father, even more so than his deeper-voiced brothers can manage. But she also knows that Everett only uses that gravelly tone when he is _afraid_.

It takes her thirty minutes to get to the school, which is pretty fast considering. 

She doesn't even ask if he wants to take Rush to his own house. She just helps him load him into the car.

~*~

"Is there something you need to tell me?" Her voice is stern, but almost detached, as she navigates the side streets instead of the main roads for some reason. Like they have to _hide_.

"I didn't do this to him, I swear!" He sounds like a child to his own ears but she seems to believe him. 

"Then who did?" He falls silent and this time there is grit of her own in her voice. "Who _did_ , Everett Elijah?"

He can't be bothered to lie to her now, not when there is so much at stake. "...David."

"What happened?" Her voice is softer now and he relaxes a fraction because he knows she believes him.

"I don't know." Once he starts talking, he can't seem to stop himself, picking at the fraying edge of his coat sleeve with his thick, football player fingers. "I told him to stop beating on him and he said to fu... that he wasn't going to do that. And then Ru... Nicholas came to the library looking like sh... bad. And then he collapsed."

"Why didn't you call Nicholas' family instead of me?"

"I don't know anything about his dad and... his mom's dead. So I didn't know who else to call. But I didn't want to just... leave him there." 

"You're a good boy, Everett," she tells him, reaching one hand off the wheel to pat his knee. "We'll just play this by ear for now."

In the back seat there is a wet sound and both of them know Rush is awake. 

~*~

When Everett tries to help him up the stairs, Rush shoves him with one surprisingly strong arm, knocking him flat against the wall, just narrowly missing a picture frame of Everett's sister in her communion dress. 

"Why are you still here then?" He snaps, following him up the stairs, still prepared for the half-stumbling boy to fall backwards and into him. "Why don't you go home?!" Everett can hear his mother making deliberately loud noises in the kitchen and he shuts his mouth and continues upstairs.

At the top of the landing, Rush looks around at the many doors, and suddenly looks completely confused and hesitates. 

"Third on the right," Everett says as kindly as he can and the other boy moves in that direction with a dogged sense of self-preservation that Everett has seen too many times to even be properly awed by anymore. 

When they do get into his room, he can feel Rush dissecting it with his gaze, calling to mind again his missing glasses as he squints but doesn't approach anything. There are posters of cars and football players on the walls, typical stuff, he knows, for a boy his age. Rush probably has the fucking Periodic Table painted on his own. A neat desk, a twin bed, and a tiny closet overstuffed with football gear are all he has in the world and he feels utterly _judged_ by Rush's intense focus before the boy almost falls again, making it a twist to sit on the bed instead.

"Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" He asks, unable to pick his poison. To loom over Rush is threatening but to sit beside him is awkward as hell. 

Awkward it is, he thinks, and sits. Rush doesn't even flinch. He looks numb. 

There's a huge bruise on the back of his head from the lockers but he isn't bleeding, Everett knows. He'd checked the other boy in a panic before carrying him down the hall. Now that he thinks of it, his arms and back ache from the exertion. Nicholas Rush may not weigh much, but he still is fucking heavy as pure deadweight. There are more bruises littering Rush's face, but that's not new news where David is concerned. But there's something else Everett cannot put his finger on, for the life of him. 

"Did we... uh..." He's trying not to stammer, a bad habit of his when he's nervous, but this is Rush so what is there to be nervous about anyway? Is he being defensive against... himself? "Did we... kidnap you?"

Rush looks at him askance and then, to Everett's amazement, actually lets crack a small smile. "I don't think yer mum would let you do something like that, Everett _Elijah_ ," he says with a wicked jibing tone Everett has never heard before. 

"I just... We didn't know how to get ahold of your dad, is all!" He protests and all signs of mirth die on Rush's face. 

"I'm sorry," he says automatically, but then he really is sorry so he says it again. Rush is looking at his lap like he's never seen his hands before, in that detached, cool way he behaves in class and it eats at Everett in a way that makes him feel like a prick even as it pisses him off. He's trying to be nice here, nicer than anyone else at their school would be, and Rush is making fun of him and being a jerk again. He must have imagined that small smile, gone before it even fully bloomed. 

"I think I should go home," Rush says in his regular, cold way, making to get to his feet.

"Please stay here," Everett says, with no real justification why he should. Except that... he wants the other boy to stay here. More than anything right now.

Sighing, Rush sits back on the bed but their hands brush where they naturally fall.

Suddenly he _can_ put a finger on what is wrong with Rush's face. And this makes him want to _murder_ David Telford.


	5. Chapter 5

The marks on Rush's face.

He couldn't identify them before, not bruises, not raised blood vessels causing the skin to redden, purple, or fade to blue-black. 

There is a set of half-moon shapes surrounding his jaw. Someone had held him by the mouth and sank their fingernails into his face to hold him still. Someone - he knows it wasn't just someone. _David_. 

Maybe Rush had tried to bite him. Maybe Rush had tried to headbutt him. 

But Rush never fought back. He just stood there and took it. He never fought back. 

But this time, he'd struggled.

"...What did he do to you?" He half-asks, half-wonders aloud. 

Rush is staggering to his feet again, but Everett catches him easily by the loose fabric around the wrist of his sweater. Pulling with as much strength as he dares, he tugs Rush back onto the bed. Rush goes down with a sound that is too breathy to be a cry. But he sits there next to Everett, staring at his hands in his lap again. Where are his glasses? He wonders almost frantically. 

They've always been so careful not to break them; David simply plucking them from the other boy's face and handing them off to Everett, who, really, all things considered, does very little of the actual beating. That doesn't comfort him or do anything to lessen the guilt he feels, deep inside and spreading throughout his body and mind. Nicholas Rush has never deserved any of this...

And, if Everett is right, David has changed the game entirely. 

"What did he do to you," he asks again, voice deeper and harder now.

Rush _flinches_. "I really have to go," he murmurs, trying to raise himself back to his feet. Everett considers knocking him back down onto the bed. It would only take one iron bar-like arm, placed right into his gut, to knock him down. But Rush might not just sit. He might fall onto his back and Everett is no longer sure he could bear to see that sight. So he lets Rush stand.

"Okay," He says softly. "You sure you don't want to wait until after dinner? My mom's making stir-fry." He is not imagining that hesitation and he almost thinks he can _hear_ Rush's stomach growling. 

"I have to go home. My father... My father will be... worried." He settles on, sounding like he is going to his own funeral. 

"Okay," Everett says again, wishing he had a driver's license so he could drive the boy himself. "I'll get my mom."

~*~

There is a car in the driveway when they pull up to Rush's run-down house. The car is as dirty and rusted as he'd expected, but it seems like it must run, since Rush's dad drives it somewhere every day.

"I'll go with you," His mom is saying to Rush, who is sitting in the front seat with her, while Everett takes the back driver's side. So he can see some of Rush's face. He's almost unbearably polite to his mom and it seems weird considering how rude he is to everyone else. 

Rush nods and thanks her in a quiet voice that makes Everett feel more and more guilty by the second. How could he have hurt this boy, oh-so many times? Rush is soft and quiet, not hurting anybody. Sure, he has outbursts, throwing his pens and books, but that is becoming less and less frequent. Like he's becoming more detached somehow. Like it's no longer worth the effort. Is he responsible for this? Him and David? Thoughts of David make him feel that spike of murderous anger again. Those marks on Rush's face... He'll never get a straight answer out of Rush. So he'll have to go directly to the source. And that's going to be... rough. 

~*~

"Rush?" David asks, taking a drag of his cigarette and leaning more comfortably against the small gazebo they eat lunch in together. No one else comes to sit with them and Everett thinks they must have quite a reputation, Nicholas Rush aside. But that is the only thing on Everett's mind right now. Those half-moon marks on Rush's jaw. And David, pleased with himself and oh-so casual.

"What happened with you two yesterday?" He tries to sound neutral, playing with the rolling papers in his own hand, trying not to spill all the tobacco before it can be safely trapped inside. He doesn't understand why they can't just buy the damned things with their fake IDs but David insists this is healthier and tastes better at the same time. Like a cigarette can be _healthy_. If he's lucky, David will not notice he doesn't do more than puff the air out of the thing instead of inhaling. It's a social activity for Everett, and not one he enjoys.

"Oh, you know, the usual," the other boy answers, but he is grinning like a Cheshire cat and there is something so satisfied about his body language that Everett _knows_ he is right.

"He collapsed on his way to the library," he snaps, all hope of sounding casual suddenly tossed to the wind.

David inhales and exhales from his nostrils like a dragon. He looks surprised and then suspicious, so fast that if Everett didn't know every inch of him so well, he'd have missed it entirely. "What were _you_ doing at the library?" 

"Had to work on that paper for Simm's class. I'm going to fail unless this one gets fucking stellar marks," he lies easily. David has never been as good at reading faces as Everett is and after a long minute, he shrugs. 

"I caught him snooping around after practice," he says, still sounding conversational, even though his fingers are playing across the cigarette before he takes another drag. He's practically bouncing on his feet, with nervous energy or pleasure. Nothing like remorse at all. "Thought I'd teach him a lesson."

Everett abandons the rolling papers, setting them down on the bench he's sitting on with what would be a slam if there was any weight to them. "And just what kind was that?" He drawls slowly, knowing he sounds dark and angry now.

David's eyebrows quirk in surprise, but he's still on his high that he takes another drag and grins conspiratorially. "...He's got a pretty good mouth on him, you know?"

He doesn't expect it at all when Everett's right hook plows into his face.

~*~


	6. Chapter 6

That afternoon, Everett sits across the aisle from Rush like he normally does. The marks on his face have already started healing, barely noticeable. What a difference a day makes. Rush is leaning against the window again, staring moodily at the parking lot, his shoulder hocked up between him and the wall. "Rush," Everett begins experimentally. That doesn't sound right anymore, so he tries again. "Nicholas."

That actually seems to attract the other boy's attention and he glances over from his window. His eyes are cautious, wary. 

"Did you miss the bus yesterday?" He asks quietly, not wanting to start with his more pressing questions.

"I had Math Club," he says simply, looking back to the window again.

Undeterred, Everett continues the conversation. "How were you going to get home?"

"Mr. Armstrong usually takes me but I missed... I missed club and he left without me."

"Because you were with David." This is the absolute wrong thing to say and Rush snarls and twists his whole body until his knee is drawn up and his whole upper body is plastered against the window. "I just want to know what happened." He says quietly, barely louder than a whisper, barely audible in the noise from the other occupants of the bus. 

"Fuck. Off." Rush says angrily, not even looking at him. He looks so small and uncomfortable and Everett can still feel the impact of David's nose against his knuckles.

That's when he makes his plan.

~*~

Three stops before Everett's house, the bus comes to a halt at the ramshackle house the Rushes share. There is no rusty car in the driveway this time of day. When Rush gets to his feet, he slips his extremely large backpack over both shoulders before pushing a hand up to press where a pair of glasses would be, if he was wearing any. His face looks so alien without them. And that's when Everett makes his move. 

Slinging his satchel over his body cross-wise, he slips to his feet, behind Rush as he moves down the tiny corridor to the front of the bus. It's like running a gauntlet, Everett realizes. There are pinching hands and tripping feet and elbows slung out at exactly the right time. Shoving back against most of them, many stop when they see him coming too. Rush is too dogged to notice him until they're standing at the doors, Everett just behind him, wondering how bad of an idea this is going to be. 

"What the fuck do you think-"

"Nicholas, language," the bus driver says in a bored tone of voice, pulling the mechanism that unfolds the doors. 

"Stay the hell away from me!" Rush snaps, practically running down the steps to his rickety mailbox. While he's busy opening the door and digging around inside, Everett hesitates. 

"Out or in, Young," the woman intones and he picks his poison, stepping off the bus. 

When the giant, yellow vehicle is pulling away with a hiss of released brakes, Rush looks up and sees him standing there. 

"Go the fuck away from me!" He snarls, clutching the packet of mail against his chest like a shield. Everett remembers him doing that with a notebook in science class as well. 

"I just need to talk to you, Nicholas," he begins, raising both hands. "I just... Why are you being so hostile? You were fine waking up in my car yesterday and coming up into my room."

"That was different!" He doesn't look so sure for a moment, but he rallies and stomps towards the house, ignoring the other boy.

Everett jogs to catch up with him, coming up alongside him just in time to take an elbow to the ribs.

"This isn't school, Young," Rush is saying, voice dark like poison in the afternoon sun. "I'm not going to stand there and just let you... you..."

"I just want to talk to you!" He cries, voice cracking, much to his humiliation. It's still been doing that after all this time when he's upset and he surely is now. 

Perhaps it's that sound, or his uplifted palms, or some conclusion Rush has reached in his own head, but the other boy sighs. "Well come the fuck on then," he spits, but there's not much venom in it. Flicking his wrist to pop the key on his bracelet up into his hand, he unlocks that solid blue door. 

And then they're standing inside.

~*~

Rush's house is surprisingly neat, considering the outside and all it's shabbiness. But the table in the hallway, well-worn and paint-chipped, is clear of dust and grime. He follows Rush through the house into the kitchen (tiny, outdated, crammed into one small, dark room) where Rush deposits his over-large backpack. There are dishes in the sink and he frowns at them, looking cross at their existence.

With a sigh, Rush pushes up his sleeves and begins to run water into the sink. Young watches him do the washing up, one plate, one bowl, and a single spoon. Not enough for two people and Rush looks like they aren't his. His father? Finally, the water stops and Rush seems to remember he's there. 

"I don't know where you get off; thinking you can just-"

" _Nicholas_ ," he says quietly, getting the other boy's attention. 

Snapping his mouth shut, Rush collects his backpack and turns to stomp up the creaking stairs. Everett follows him because he has nothing else to do. He texts his mom quickly, telling her he's at a 'friend's' house, unable to bring himself to say he's with Rush again. 

There are only three doors upstairs and one of them is clearly a bathroom. What must be the master sits on the right side, and another, much smaller bedroom, is crammed beside the bathroom. He goes after Rush, into the tiny room.

There is no periodic table, he thinks. Just wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling pictures. Cutouts from magazines, newspapers, books. Rush has positively _filled_ the room with images and words. Stepping close, he sees they all have to do with space. With math. 

Rush loves math, he knows, is fucking brilliant at it. He's won their school all kinds of contests and awards, ever since Freshman year. (Everett personally struggles with math, and he thinks for one hysterical moment that he should ask Rush to tutor him). Finally, the bookbag drops to the floor, and Rush sits heavily on the sagging, but neatly made bed. "You gonna just stand there?" He asks sharply, glaring up at him.

Confused, Everett removes his satchel, setting it beside Rush's bag in the floor. Then he joins him, sitting on the half of the bed Rush isn't. They sit in silence for a long time, neither of them looking at one another, neither of them speaking. 

And then, suddenly, Rush is changing the game entirely, twisting to sling one knee over Everett until he is straddling his lap. Unable to bring his hands up fast enough to protect himself, Everett braces for whatever comes next.

What he doesn't expect is to feel Nicholas Rush's mouth close over his.

~*~


End file.
